News
Criminal
Mar. 1, 2002
Defense Blames Victim's Partner for Mauling Death
LOS ANGELES - Spectators in the courtroom gasped in shock Thursday as a defense attorney in the fatal dog-mauling case against two San Francisco attorneys blamed the victim's life partner for Diane Whipple's death at the jaws of two huge dogs.
Sharon Smith, Whipple's partner and roommate, testified about a previous incident in which one of the large dogs owned by the defendants bit Whipple on the hand.
The incident left Whipple "terrified" of the animals, Smith said.
Husband and wife attorneys Robert Noel, 60, and Marjorie Knoller, 46, are charged in the Jan. 26, 2001, death of the 33-year-old college lacrosse coach, who died after her clothing was torn off and she was bitten to death in the hallway of the apartment building she shared with the couple. People v Knoller, 181813 (San Francisco Super. Ct., indicted March 2001).
Smith took the stand Thursday after testimony from a police forensic dentist, a Special Weapons and Tactics officer and a crime scene investigator.
Smith testified that the month before Whipple was fatally attacked, one of the dogs bit her on the hand when she encountered Noel and the animal in the building's lobby.
Smith said that, after being bitten, Whipple said she warned Noel, "You need to control your dogs."
"What did he do?" San Francisco District Attorney James Hammer asked.
"She said he just stared at her," Smith answered.
Whipple sustained only red indentations on the webbing of her hand from the bite, Smith said, but the incident rendered her terrified of the animals she referred to as "those dogs."
Whipple then altered her behavior every time she exited her sixth-floor apartment down a hallway from Noel and Knoller's unit, Smith said.
Before Whipple would exit her apartment, she would peer down the hall to make sure the dogs were not in the hallway, Smith said.
When Smith would reach out to open the ornate, old-fashioned elevator door, Whipple would grab her arm, telling her she feared the dogs would be inside, Smith said.
When Whipple did encounter Noel or Knoller with the dogs, she would flatten herself against a wall and quickly slide away, sometimes even shoving Smith between herself and the animals, Smith told jurors.
"She would do everything she could do to get as far away as possible from them," Smith said.
Smith testified that, in October 2000, she had her own scary encounter with Noel and one of the dogs in the lobby.
When the dog advanced toward her, she said, she instinctively thrust her arm out in fear.
"Noel yelled, 'No! Don't do that. The dog was just in a fight with another dog, and he's spooked,'" Smith told jurors.
Smith wept when Hammer asked her about the day of the fatal attack.
Whipple, she said, called her at work Jan. 26, 2001, around lunchtime asking her to come home early so they could have dinner and take in a movie.
When Smith arrived at her Pacific Avenue apartment complex at about 5:30 p.m., the street was blocked with police cars, ambulances and fire trucks, she said. Yellow police tape prevented her from entering the building, Smith said.
Her landlord told her that Whipple had been attacked and took her to San Francisco General Hospital, where she stayed with Whipple until she died, Smith said.
Smith was still weeping when Knoller's attorney, Nedra Ruiz, began to grill her about why she did not report the first incident when Noel's dog bit Whipple in December.
"Did you ever tell the owner of the building that Diane Whipple had been bitten by a dog?" Ruiz asked.
"No, I did not," Smith replied.
"And you took no action to remedy a situation where your domestic partner lived in fear?" Ruiz asked.
Smith replied that they did take action by avoiding the couple and the dogs.
"Had you considered that, if you had made a complaint, Diane Whipple would be alive today?" Ruiz asked pointedly.
Smith shook her head. Her sister, sitting in the front row with friends, wept almost uncontrollably.
Ruiz brought up a civil wrongful death lawsuit that Smith brought against Noel and Knoller, intimating that Smith would make money from the action.
But Smith, a vice president at Charles Schwab brokerage in San Francisco, told jurors that she has established a Diane Alexis Whipple Foundation, to which she will donate any money that comes from the lawsuit.
Smith said that she finds it "disgusting" that anyone would try to profit from Whipple's death.
On re-direct, Hammer asked Smith why she is suing Noel and Knoller.
"Because I believe they are guilty and responsible for taking Diane's life, and I want to make sure they are accountable," Smith said.
Jurors have heard other neighbors' accounts of frightening encounters with the dogs.
Prosecutors allege that Noel and Knoller acquired the dogs from a prison inmate whom they adopted and who allegedly was illegally operating a vicious dog raising operation from inside Pelican Bay State Prison in Northern California.
The couple is charged with involuntary manslaughter and keeping "mischievous" dogs. Knoller, who was with the dogs when Whipple was attacked, also is charged with second-degree murder. If found guilty, she would be the first person in California to be convicted of murder stemming from the actions of her dogs, Hera and Bane.
The couple's defense attorneys said that the dogs' behavior was unexpected and that Knoller was injured while trying to stop the attack.
In other testimony, Gregory Mar, a San Francisco Police Department's forensic dentist showed jurors plaster casts made of the dogs' teeth. Aligning a cast of Bane's teeth with an autopsy photograph of deep gouges on Whipple's neck, Mar said that it was "a pretty good match."
Either or both of the dogs could have administered the other wounds, Mar said.
Alec Cardenas, a San Francisco Police Department SWAT officer, testified that he tried to help Whipple when he arrived minutes after the attack.
Cardenas said he saw her lying face down on the floor the moment he alighted from the elevator.
"I knelt down, and I noticed right off, a large wound to the left side of her neck," Cardenas said. "She was bleeding profusely. There was blood all over her, on the walls."
The carpet was soaked with blood, and he could see clumps of hair scattered around, the officer said.
"She was in a bad way," he said.
Cardenas said that, when he tried to determine whether Whipple could respond to him, she made "grunting sounds."
He testified that he also did a cursory medical assessment of Knoller, who had cuts on her right thumb and index finger, but noticed no other injuries.
However, Knoller was covered in blood "from head to toe," Cardenas said.
As other medical and police personnel have testified, Cardenas said that Knoller never asked about Whipple's welfare.
San Francisco crime scene investigator Spencer Gregory identified photographs depicting the carnage left in the dogs' wake - blood-saturated carpet, blood-smeared walls and groceries scattered down the hallway from Whipple's apartment. A photograph of her keys dangling from the exterior deadbolt in the partially open door indicates that she almost made it inside safely.
Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom handed Gregory several brown paper sacks containing plastic bags holding Whipple's clothes.
Inside the bags were pieces of bloodied cloth so torn they barely resembled garments.
"The clothes are basically shredded," Gregory said. "They're just ripped to pieces."
Gregory said that the blood trail ended at about the area of the apartment in which Noel and Knoller lived. A photograph of that entry way features a doormat that reads "Ask not for whom the dog barks. It barks for thee."
During an evidentiary hearing, prosecutors stated that they will not introduce the preserved skull of Bane, the dog believed to have done most of the fatal biting.
Warren allowed prosecutors to show jurors plaster casts and enlarged photographs of the teeth of both dogs. Bane's pictures and casts were taken after he was euthanized the night of the attack. Hera was put down several weeks ago.
Both Ruiz and Bruce Hotchkiss, Noel's attorney, objected. Ruiz said that the magnified images of the bloodied canine teeth were too prejudicial.
Warren moved the trial to Los Angeles because of extensive publicity in San Francisco.
Testimony resumes Monday.
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Anne La Jeunesse
Daily Journal Staff Writer
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